Do NOT push the button
by GroundPetrel
Summary: A pack of vicious dinosaurs is loose in the Forest of Dean...what is it about those woods that attracts bad luck and anomalies, anyway? Meanwhile, a routine computer check finds malware-and worse. Finally complete.
1. Chapter 1: The field trip from hell

**Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own Primeval. I mean, come on, the site's called FanFiction. **

**Prologue: **

**Forest of Dean. 1 week after the Dartmoor anomaly. **

Katherine "Kathy" Monroe, age 15, was having a fairly ordinary day, up until the point where she met a dinosaur face-to-face.

Kathy and her friends Alice Morgan and Taylor Craig had somewhat intentionally gotten themselves separated from their fellow students on a field trip from the Cecil Windlock St. John Nobbs School for Gifted Children. The "Gifted" in the Nobbs School's name meant that all of the students either were freakishly brilliant or had preposterously wealthy parents—in the case of Kathy and her friends, it was the former. Kathy herself was a budding computer scientist—and, unbeknownst to her teachers, spent most of her time at school hacking various government websites with her specially modified smartphone, under the hacker name "Hijack". Alice was an incurable math nerd, and had the unique ability to reenact, from memory, every single episode of Star Trek (including the animated series and the movies).

Taylor—well, Taylor was _special_. She had a deep understanding of astrophysics, paleontology, and animal behavior, despite having had no formal training in any of these areas. She was unusual, often leaving school in the middle of class or disappearing on weekends, which would have gotten her expelled were it not for the fact that she always got her homework done with preposterously high scores (and in one particularly memorable case, with several pages of corrections to the calculations in an intentionally impossible question on space-time warping that the science master had put into the physics exam to "prove that that irritating little girl is an overblown braggart with no actual physics knowledge whatsoever"). Taylor also moved incredibly quickly and was tremendously strong—she had once accidentally broken two of Alice's ribs while giving her a hug—but had a permanent excuse letter for PE because of a "heart condition". She ate more than anyone Kathy knew, but was still a wiry size 2. The oddest part was that she always wore large, opaque sunglasses and an ankle-length trench coat buttoned all the way up, regardless of the weather or her own (often obvious) discomfort. Taylor never gave a straight answer when asked about the coat, but Kathy suspected that it had something to do with Taylor's chest, which was malformed in some way, with massive pectoral muscles, a central bony ridge running down Taylor's midline and no apparent breasts.

Taylor never talked about her body, either.

The three girls were walking along about four hundred meters away from the school group when Taylor suddenly stopped stock still and bent straight over at the hips.

"What the _hell_?"

"What? What is it?"

"A freaking cycadoid. A bennitalacean flower. Holy crap—these things've been extinct since the Jurassic period—which means…oh, _shit_."

"What?"

"C'mon. There's something out here, and I need to report it."

"Does this have something to do with that freaky job of yours," asked Alice.

"Yeah. Now stay quiet—we're probably close."

"So what are we—what are _those_?"

Kathy stopped dead. Alice almost ran into her back. Taylor had frozen, and her entire body was tense.

The animals—two of them—were about fifty meters away, hidden from the girls' earlier position by a bank of willow saplings. The animals were about twenty feet long and bipedal, with spiny quills coating their bodies. They looked vaguely like reptilian kangaroos to Kathy, with a pair of slim crests on their heads and hooked-tipped, vicious-toothed jaws. One looked up, and hummed, alerting the other. They started to stalk forwards, separating to flank the girls. Predators. Kathy felt her blood run cold.

"Dilophosaurs," hissed Taylor. "No sudden moves. Back up slowly. When you get around the willows, _run_. I can take them, but you'll just get yourselves hurt. Get to the teachers, tell them to evacuate everyone. Say that you saw a lion or something—there'll be enough noise for that story to work. Don't let anyone come back for me—my boss has contacts in MI6, they'll help me if I need it. Five steps now…four…three…two…one…_now_!"

Taylor leaped just as the larger creature's hum deepened as it realized that its prey was escaping.

Kathy wasn't proud of what she did next. She grabbed Alice and ran, breathless with terror.

**Part 1: **

**Anomaly Research Centre. Two hours earlier. **

Captain Hilary Becker came to work with a massive hangover. He really shouldn't have drunk quite so much beer while out with Connor and Matt. The movie had, at least, had a large number of impressive explosives and a sweet array of firearms and incendiary weapons—Becker was particularly impressed by Black Widow's automatic pistols. Unfortunately, Connor had come to the theater in full nerd regalia, complete with imitation Captain America shield. Sitting next to the team geek had sort of taken the fun out of the movie, because he kept giggling and gasping at every single nerdy joke or reference (which seemed to be every joke and/or reference in the movie), and because he had dumped his entire Caf-Overload Big Chug on Becker's lap when Ultron (played by James Spader, to Becker's delight) revealed itself.

He was certain that his date last week with Jess had been better—he just wished that he could remember more of it. He remembered the missile test, the target shooting, and the dinner—but nothing after that, except in bits and pieces. He had one crystal-clear memory of Jess standing over him in black lace underwear, but the rest of his time at her apartment was a blur.

Becker sat down in the armory and started mindlessly cleaning his EMD.

Becker was pretty sure that taking Adderall before his date had been a bad idea. It was good for keeping himself awake and on point, but it had nasty side effects if overused and tended to react badly with alcohol. He should have been _paying attention_ to the dinner, not to Jess's face. Too much champagne, combined with stimulants—bad combination.

He still hadn't worked out the new status of his relationship, but Abby had wolf-whistled when he came into the menagerie to ask her to sign some requisition forms two days after the date, and then had made a few vaguely disconcerting cracks that seemed to be extremely funny to her while Becker waited in silent, embarrassed agony.

On the plus side, Jess seemed to have a new habit of throwing herself into Becker's arms every morning (except today, because he had gone straight to the armory). Things could be a lot worse, he supposed.

Becker reached a final decision (ask Emily what happened) exactly three point four seconds before the anomaly alert siren blared. He shook off his musings, rapidly reassembled his EMD, and ran for the car park.

**ARC car park. Thirty seconds later. **

The Russian was in the car already when Matt Anderson got to the car park.

"_Zdrastvitye_, _Anglitsz tovarishch_. Where are the others?"

"Becker's on his way with the security team—he'll be right behind us. We'll be picking up Emily on the way—she had an optometrist's appointment which should be done now, and the doctor's office is on the way. The anomaly's in the forest of Dean."

"Maitland and Temple?" asked Tanya as Matt pulled a one-eighty turn in full reverse just to show off.

"Abby's got her own car. Connor's at their flat—something about his socks and a toaster explosion? Abby'll pick him up on her way out. You have an EMD?"

"_Da_. I picked up a rifle model and a pistol model on my way up."

"Good. I don't know what you Russians see in us—you seem pretty competent."

"I _am_ the only one of our team who has survived for more than six months. Normally, my superiors would not care, but our life insurance is expensive."

Matt smirked grimly at that. Russians.

There was something creepy about Sholoshkova, though—it wasn't just her scars, the ones on her forearms that she didn't like to talk about, or her disconcerting smile, or the stereotypical "Commie Ruskie" mannerisms; something about her suggested that she was far more powerful than she let on, and woe betide whoever got in the way of her raw power.

As he pulled out of the car park, Matt decided that he would run a background check on the Russian.

**Abby Maitland's apartment. London, England. **

"Come on, Connor!"

Abby Maitland was currently standing outside of the door to her apartment, which was open and leaking clouds of smoke.

"I'm sorry, Abby!" Connor's voice was wheezing and somewhat faint. "I just put me socks in the toaster by mistake…"

"How on earth do you mistake your _socks_ for _toast_?"

"It was an accident! I was groggy, I'd just woken up! I put me socks on the countertop, and I forgot about them…"

"Honestly, Connor, if it weren't for me, I don't know how you could possibly survive! Now come on, there's an anomaly in the Forest of Dean again, and the traffic's heavy. We need to leave, now!"

"What about me socks? And the toaster's still on fire!"

"I'll get Lester to deal with it—hang on, Jess says that she's got the fire department on their way, and she brought Delta team on duty to hide Rex from the firemen. Now come on, or we'll never get out there!"

Connor Temple, still a little puffy around the cheeks from his little toxin adventure the previous week, burst out of the doors covered with soot and coughing heavily. He had his black box and his coms unit, which was good—maybe forcing him to go to bed with them on was a good idea, after all.

"Good. Now get in the car, and for heaven's sake brush some of that soot off! You look like a Victorian chimney sweep!"

**Forest of Dean. **

Captain Hilary Becker brought his truck to a dramatic, screeching, burnt-rubber halt, _slammed_ the transmission into park, and positively propelled himself out the door, swearing about idiot motorists, moronic highway architects, and incompetent police officers. Matt, Emily, and the Russian were already armed and ready to go.

Otis, MacFarlane, Williams, and Smythe (blame his parents, the nutters) got out of Becker's truck and waited with remarkable patience as Becker grabbed his EMD from the back and passed out their weapons.

"Let's go," said Becker, and he vaulted the amusingly stereotypical little white plastic fence that stood between the cars and the forest.

"Where are Connor and Abby?"

"They said they'd catch up, Matt. Give them another fifteen minutes or so."

"Pardon me, _tovarishch_," said the Russian, "But were we not supposed to use nonlethals only?"

"It's a birthday present from a teammate. I just got it last week, and I've been dying to try it out. Anyone who makes a comment gets a black mark on their mission report."

Matt had the good graces to restrain himself to a smirk. Private Smythe snickered, but Becker decided to cut him a little slack.

"Now, I'll be pairing us up, because this is a known Permian site with a history of future predator incursions. Security leader's privilege—that's a new thing, Ms. Sholoshkova. MacFarlane, Otis, you're with Connor and Abby when they get here. Until then, stay by the trucks and stay alert. Williams, Smythe, you're with Matt. Matt, take Tanya with you, show her how we do things. Emily, you're with me."

"Hang on, how come I can't be with Emily?"

"Because if there's one thing I've learned from having Connor and Abby around, it's that when there's a couple on a mission, working together, the situation is _exponentially_ more likely to experience a critical failure or a major hitch. Besides, I want three squads, and Emily and I are the best shots; we've got better individual odds than the rest of us. Now, one locking device per squad, and coms on at all times. I don't want any accidents."

Matt looked at Becker like he was about to say something. Becker shot him a quick pleading expression. Matt caught the look, looked puzzled for a moment, and then nodded slightly with a wry smile.

"Alright, let's go."

**AN: **Bonus points to anyone who spots the outside reference and gets the joke. Some slightly spoiler-ish notes:

Taylor is an augment. Her employers—will be revealed later.

No, the anomaly is not to the Permian. It is to the early Jurassic of Connecticut, a rather peaceful period of Earth's history. The dilophosaurs are about the largest predators on Earth at the time. Other hazards include smaller ceolophysids (such as _Megapnosaurus_, formerly _Syntarsus_, and cursed with a name that literally means "big dead lizard" by some jerk of an entomologist).

Bothered by the bit about Becker's missing night? Look, they are two young adults (Becker's about 26-30, Jess is about twenty), they like each other, and they're both more than a little intoxicated at the time. Plus, given that they were both rather uncertain and afraid of doing the wrong thing…let's just say that things didn't go as Becker suspects.

I am expanding April quite a bit from her cannon role, as she always seemed a little…out of place, as if she wasn't who she claimed to be (even when she was fighting Abby with her silly glasses off). Canonically, she behaves like an intelligent psychopath—she clearly has no remorse for her actions, and she behaves a little inconsistently, but the fact that she recognizes Abby as an obstacle and tries to get her away from Connor despite only meeting Abby occasionally indicates that April is highly intelligent.

This story assumes stably unstable temporal dynamics—basically, if you go back, then you have already been back, and so all changes you make are already being felt. However, it is possible to use temporal shenanigans to create, delete, and move between multiple potential near-identical universes. (c.f. Cutter and Claudia/Jenny)

If you like the story, please review. I welcome constructive feedback. Flames will be used to cook s'mores (and if you're a racist sexist homophobic troll, I will send you a reply that (a) links you to Manboobz, the Internet's biggest anti-sexist site, and (b) call you out on your RSHDness in traditional John Scalzi fashion).


	2. Chapter 2: Enter Raven

**Obviously, I don't own Primeval. The OC is mine, though. **

**If you like it, please review. Pointless trolling will be ignored. Criticism (positive or negative) will be responded to whenever I can. **

**Part 2: **

**Anomaly Research Centre. **

Jessica "Jess" Parker, age 20, really wished that her boyfriend was more romantic. Oh, sure, Becker was strong and handsome, and it was definitely true, at least in his case, that soldiers were more attractive—but he was so _careful_ around her, like he was afraid of hurting her feelings. The few times that he had been a proper romantic boyfriend, Jess had been in mortal danger and Becker had been coming to her rescue.

Seriously, was it too much to ask to be swept off of one's feet and carried into bed after a night out? She had, after all, sat through that boring weapons test, and had tolerated Becker's lessons at the shooting range (although she had to admit that those lessons might actually come in handy sometime); and the night had perhaps been the biggest let-down. She had dressed for it, all black lace and stuff (which she had heard was appropriate for seduction), and had taken Abby's relationship advice to heart ("Always, always make the first move—the good men are too terrified of us to do it, and the ones who do make the first move tend to be morons")—with no luck. They'd ended up cuddling and watching a bad romance movie, and Becker had (before he passed out from overindulgence of champagne) been so _annoyingly_ respectful and hands-off.

At least the date hadn't been a complete waste. Abby had laughed uproariously at the story, and even Emily, who was usually a little more restrained about these matters, had giggled hysterically for over a minute. Abby had assured Jess that her experience with Connor had been quite the same (and had then cracked a "What happens in the Cretaceous…" joke), and said that she and Emily would be sure to talk to Becker about being more romantic next time.

All the same, Jess was a little irritated, even a week later, and on this particular day she was especially frustrated because the coffee pot had broken (or, more accurately, it had exploded with climactic drama when Connor had had a little "accident" with an EMD) and Lester hadn't got around to ordering a replacement.

Her irritation was fortunate, as it turned out, because otherwise she never would have noticed the ever-so-slight delay in the computer. Part of her said that it was just her imagination, but Becker was sweeping the area and Matt's team was heading for the anomaly with a locking device, so she had time to spare, and anyway Jess was, as has already been mentioned, in a rather subpar mood.

She pulled up the task manager screen (cursing Windows 9 as she did so), and found nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing at all, in fact—wait. The processing usage and outgoing signals were a few kilobytes per minute more than they should have been. A small discrepancy, but…

Jess opened up the calculator function—the only part of the new Windows operating system that was worth the upgrade, in her opinion (and why Connor used Windows for higher processing, she would never understand)—and totaled up the active processes. They came up about three kilobytes lower than the total, on both processing usage and outgoing signals. Something was reviewing and sending out information, and it wasn't appearing on the task manager. Spyware.

Jess cursed.

"Jess? Is something wrong?"

"Spyware. There's spyware on the ADD, Matt. Where the hell is Connor?"

"Spyware? Camouflaged, I guess?"

"Oh, hi, Connor. Yes, it looks camouflaged. There's no process running, but there's a discrepancy in the processing usage."

"Run a virus scan. Abby, drop me off up here; I'll nip back to the ARC in a taxi."

"Virus and malware scans running now."

"Run me prototype Trojan detector, too—if this is professional, which it probably is, then commercial protection probably won't be effective. If you can, send me a raw feed—I have a throwaway detector console MK-2 in the back, hooked up to me old iPad. I'll do a direct link via a secure internet channel—give me a moment here."

"Virus and malware scans just came up clean. _Shit_!"

"That's good, right?"

"No Matt, that's bad. A really good virus can evade sweeper programs. We're just lucky that Jess went to the trouble of manually analyzing the feed—whatever made you do that, anyway?"

"I don't know—paranoia, I guess."

Connor chuckled. "Well, at least paranoia does us some good for once. We've really got to do that more."

**Forest of Dean. **

April cursed her luck. The Arrows worm was supposed to be undetectable. It was really rather typical of the mutant killer's luck that the annoying little bitch had been paranoid today.

April briefly considered dropping her cover right there, but she decided against it. Emotions under control on the job, always. Duvall hadn't given the kill order, and some direct hacking would definitely get her some information that her employers would kill to acquire.

She hung back from the group for a moment and checked her email, muttering an excuse about a message from her (nonexistent) Russian boss.

Her dummy account was empty, but the secret one had a new message.

_From: mominatrix_

_To: iamnumber4_

_Subject: A52_

_April dear, _

_Just got word from October on that info you wanted—Area 52 does not seem to be capable of augment mass-production. They have also not yet developed Twelve-grade gen mod tech, or room-temperature superconductors (hence, no locking devices, no openers, and only primitive sun cages). Anomaly control is accomplished by biological/technological hybrid; Agent Gull (Stephanie? Maybe Joan?) has electromagnetic organs on the outside of her skull that she uses in conjunction with an unidentified meson-metal helmet to create a dampening field (full closure, not merely a lock). She also appears capable of sensing anomalies at fairly close range. _

_Area 52 has developed intractinium. Other meson-metals have not been confirmed, but we have confirmation that at least three skeletons and several miscellaneous weapons have been manufactured so far. They recently began using a new model Shocker—twice the discharge, half the waste, very similar to a British EMD. _

_New orders from up top: Do not let the ARC ally with Operation Falcon. The Americans haven't developed conventional room-temperature superconductors, and so haven't developed working locking devices or mechanical openers. The ARC has not yet developed genetic modification tech, and so are incapable of defeating our employers' forces. If they work together, they stand a chance of finding and eliminating the base before our employers can initiate the Event. _

_How is your Russian disguise? I've been stuck out here in Siberia for a week, running ambushes against Ivanova and her team. Operation Falcon shared gen mod tech with them in exchange for meson-metal fabrication info. Petrov punched me in the face yesterday. I gutted him. Ivanova retrieved him, but he's out for a few weeks. _

_Have fun with your new pain monkeys! _

_Your friend and colleague, _

_September. _

April was about to reply, but then she caught the scent.

_Raven! _

**Anomaly Research Centre. **

James Lester was unhappy, as usual.

"Listen, Minister, I need that authorization! My team has found invasive spyware on our detector and we need to call in a technology expert!"

"You have Temple, don't you?" Duvall's voice was lazy and contemptuous. James Lester hated being talked down to.

"Well, yes, he has some technological training, but his primary field of knowledge is paleontology! He can't be expected to…"

"Lester, I don't have the funds to spare. MI6 wants more funding, the military needs more guns, and the Prime Minister just caused a diplomatic incident with North Korea!"

"Don't give me that bullshit, _Harold_! The military has more guns than it knows what to do with, MI6 has been overfunded since the last damn Ice Age, and, the Prime Minister's lack of brain tissue aside, the North Koreans are _always_ threatening nuclear war. If you would be so kind as to stop telling porkies and give me some honest answers, I might be more sympathetic!"

Duvall's voice suddenly grew hard. "No funds or outsourcing, Lester. And if you persist in asking why, you _will_ regret it."

"Who the—what are you playing at? Who are you really working for here?"

"Last chance, Lester," said Duvall, and he slammed the phone down on his end.

**Forest of Dean. **

Taylor Craig, CIA agent and veteran of many things that a fifteen-year-old should not have seen, was currently sitting in a tree with three hungry dinosaurs prowling below her.

Yes, three. Just her luck; she could take two, but not with a third to flank her. She didn't even have her Shocker to blast the damn things, because of course she'd left that back at base. Seriously, this new gig (anomaly watch for Britain, without the British government's knowledge) was pretty much a disaster from the start.

Taylor was nursing a sliced right arm at the moment—dinosaur bites _hurt_. Dilophosaurs had jaws like traps; the premaxilliary bone extended past the maxilla and left a gap between the premaxilliary and maxilliary teeth. The result was a little nook in between the front teeth and the main set, which could trap prey like a very spiky net. Taylor had only gotten away by punching the offending dinosaur in the eye.

She had been stuck up this tree for about a minute so far. Her friends should have warned the field trip by now, and with a little backup her team's newly upgraded anomaly detector would kick in soon and they'd come and help. They should be calling her cell phone any minute now—oh, wait, she'd turned the damn thing off. Crappy school policy.

Taylor swore as she moved her injured arm. She'd need a new trench coat after today—this one was shot. It still served its purpose, but people would wonder about the tears and bloodstains on the sleeve.

A crunching sound in the undergrowth announced the high-speed arrival of three men and a woman, all armed to the teeth. Two of the men were in Kevlar vests and combat boots; the woman was wearing loose cargo pants and a T-shirt with something in Russian written on it, and the man was in a generic brown shirt and jeans—seriously, jeans? On a combat mission? And who were these people, anyway?

The dinosaurs turned. One took two blue electrical pulses to the teeth and collapsed.

Shockers. Taylor felt a little better. These had to be the Russians—none of them were obvious augments, but the woman was moving with the self-confident grace of a powerful—oh, _shit_! That was _April_!

Taylor shivered involuntarily. The last time she had met April—that had been _bad_.

_Blood. Death. Foss being killed as she watched. April holding her down, hissing with glee. The raptors shrieking. Stephanie shooting the ultimate assassin in the head. And April had recognized her—recognized her as the one who got away from the Area 51 fiasco, hidden in a closet while Susan Martinez, who had liked to show Taylor pictures of her three-month-old daughter in those adorable bunny slippers, got cut down by April while dumping aniseed oil everywhere to cover Taylor's scent. That had been the worst part, those few seconds when she would have given anything, anything to just fly away, free as a bird, leaving Foss to die. And she knew that she was a coward—heck, everyone was a coward when they were screaming as their best friend died, with the ultimate living weapon holding them down and whispering threats of blood and pain into their ear. But she had wanted to run, not to help Foss. Even as she screamed, and he was ripped apart without a sound. He had been braver than she could ever be. And even now, the wings on her back, the ones she loved so much, that she couldn't live without even for those two weeks per year of molt, reminded her that she had been a coward. Never again. _

Taylor dropped out of the tree, locking her legs around a dilophosaur's neck and clapping her hands against its eardrums as the man in jeans—seriously, if he did any martial arts in those, he'd be in for some major pain in his balls—took out the third animal with a Shocker pulse.

Taylor flipped herself over the stunned dinosaur's back, ignoring the men's shouts of surprise and April's startled breath as she grabbed for her phone with her uninjured left hand. The move might have revealed her wings—but no time to worry about that.

Taylor ran. April yelled something behind her, and Taylor heard the light, dexterous footsteps of a highly modified augment behind her.

She flipped open her phone. Come on, boot up, boot up!

**Matt POV. **

To say that Matt was quite surprised when the teenage girl dropped out of the tree, knocked the dinosaur out cold with her bare hands, and flipped backwards over its back as it fell was an understatement.

"Whoah—what the _hell_?"

Then he saw the blood on the leaves.

"Hey, she's hurt! Someone…"

"I'm on it," said Tanya, breaking into a sprint. She was incredibly fast—not as fast as the girl, who was now a vanishing blur in the undergrowth, but still faster than Matt would have thought possible.

"Wait, there could be more—ah, great." The Russian was already gone, leaping straight over a large bush after the fleeing girl.

"Right, we need to regroup. Jess, contact Becker. This girl with a bleeding arm just dropped out of a tree and took out a dinosaur with one hit, with her bare hands. Someone's out here. The Russian's going after the girl, but there could be civilians out here—Abby, are you here yet?"

"Yeah, I just got here. Where did the girl go?"

"South. Due south."

"Right, we'll take the south side. You two, with me. What kind of dinosaur, Matt?"

"They're about twenty feet long. Theropods, fairly lightly built. They've got a pair of crests on their heads—thin little things, not weapons."

Connor's voice came over Coms. "_Dilophosaurus_. They're coelophysids, from the early Jurassic. How many?"

"Three. All out cold."

"So they _are_ pack hunters! Right, there may be more, so stay alert. That's a nasty species—fast, strong, and jaws like traps. Don't let them bite you, whatever you do."

"Right. Tanya, where are you?"

"She's not answering her coms. I think she shut them off. Matt, I can't raise Becker either!"

"Alright. Jess, you keep trying to raise Becker and Emily. You two, help me find the anomaly and take these little charmers back home. Abby, make sure the area's clear and come help us. If you find the Russian or that girl, bring them too. Connor, any progress on that spyware?"

"It's some nasty stuff. It blew past my firewalls like they weren't even there and hacked the malware scanners like a hot knife cutting butter. It even used the scanner programs to shield itself. It looks like it hit Norton first, used the corrupted program to disable Avira and Malwarebytes—damn, this is some nasty stuff. Somebody's gone to all the stops with this—I think that it's rooted in everything. Coms looks free at least…oh, crap!"

"What?"

"My sweeper's coming up empty; I'm going to need to undo this code line by line. Call you back later—this is going to take me a few hours, minimum."

Matt swore. Anything that could stump Connor Temple was extremely dangerous.

**AN (note, spoilers below): **

**And so the action begins, along with the main plotline. If anyone is wondering what happened to Future Matt—he's coming. He's got an extremely important cameo in Episode 6, which will drive the plotline of Season 7. **

**If you're wondering why a teenager is working on an anomaly team—she wasn't originally a field agent. This will be explained later. **


	3. Chapter 3: Computer troubles

**Disclaimer: I don't own Primeval. This is, obviously, non-for-profit fanfiction and no copyright infringement is intended. **

**This chapter is dedicated to the rear ends of the various Congresscritters, which have to deal with said Congresscritters' heads being stuffed up them. If the Tea Party won't be rational and break the shutdown, then I won't vote for them when I can vote (next year, in fact). That's assuming that I haven't moved to Sweden by then, of course. And since I'm one of those dirty socialist liberals who supports marriage equality and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, I wouldn't vote for them anyway, but it's the spirit that counts. **

**Finally, I support any and all petitions to force the Primeval movie out of development hell. If anyone sees such petitions on Kickstarter or elsewhere, please let me know. **

**Part Three: **

**Forest of Dean. **

Taylor Craig was officially terrified. The dinosaurs were just a problem. April was a lethal threat. Maybe she should've stayed put—no, the Twelve had noses like bloodhounds. Staying put wasn't safe.

She could hear April behind her, padding swiftly closer. Taylor was fast, with her lightweight bones and superhuman strength, but April was stronger and faster. It was only a matter of time before Taylor tired and the inhuman assassin caught up.

Taylor had read a report from Russia about the Russian team's first encounter with April. The superassassin had hunted down and killed five of the best field agents in the Russian intelligence services in under an hour, covering a hundred acres of frozen forest. When April and September had attacked the Joint Strategic Training Initiative in Nevada, of which Taylor had been the only survivor, they had killed over two hundred people in thirty minutes, and only twenty of those had been trained security staff. The rest had been trainees, ranging from teenagers like Taylor who had encountered anomalies to brilliant college students to a few people in their twenties who'd been recruited for various reasons. They had all hidden, except for Susan Martinez, who'd grabbed a bottle of aniseed oil that had been in the lab after Stuart Wilson's little accident with the stink bomb. Susan had stuffed Taylor into a janitor's closet in the lab and told her to be silent, and then started pouring the oil everywhere. April caught her while she was halfway done with the workstations.

Taylor would never forget the look on Susan Martinez's face as her torso fell to the ground, followed by her abdomen and legs. The look on April's face, too—that terrifying hunger, the _satisfaction_ on her face after she licked the drop of blood on her lip, the hiss of glee as Susan screamed—was unforgettable.

After the JSTI disaster, Taylor was transferred from Area 51 to Area 52 (base of operations at a classified underground location outside of Topeka, Kansas) and promoted to non-combat field duty as a clean-up tech. She had been going to get Foss's keys from Stephanie Fry after arriving early to one mission and helping deal with some raptors (she had skipped out on her therapy, perhaps unwisely) when April struck again.

And now she was running for her life through some woods back in England, with the ultimate assassin on her tail again. And she was supposed to be on part-time duty, now. Unbelievable.

Taylor would have been gasping for breath if she was still human. Fortunately—or unfortunately, if you had an eye for drama—her altered respiratory system was physically incapable of gasping. Panting, yes, although it was much less efficient than her normal breathing cycle. Gasping, no.

**POV: Becker. **

"I was _impotent_?"

Captain Hilary Becker could not have been more embarrassed if he had actually lived through his regular nightmare of going to work in his boxer shorts.

Emily was very clearly losing her battle not to giggle. If possible, that made it worse.

"Yes. Jess said that she tried getting you drunk and seducing you, but that you were the perfect gentleman. I found the description to be adorable, myself. Better a man who is too nervous when you want him than one who doesn't care if you want him."

"Yeah, but I…I thought that I had at _least_ made up for making her sit through the weapons demonstration. I mean, she doesn't see what's so awesome about guns—nothing wrong with that, I just don't really understand it. Oh, man, she's going to _kill_ me! Or worse, dump me!"

Becker was hyperventilating. Emily looked like she was choking on a laugh (which, in fact, she was). Fortunately for Becker, she took pity on him.

"I cannot change the past, but I _can_ give you some advice to handle your next date—and do not worry, she has not "dumped" you, she is in fact quite worried that you are upset with her."

Becker whimpered, and instantly regretted it.

"Next time, when you get back to her apartment, you sweep her off her feet and carry her to bed. Women like Jess want a nice, strong soldier boy. Also, you should probably cook her something nice as well—you _can_ cook, yes?"

"Yeah. After a few months in Afghanistan, you pick up a few tricks."

"Good. Cook her something nice and lay out the plates, while she is getting dressed, if you can manage it. Put the notebook back in your pocket, you need to remember this and we _are_ on duty."

"Right…so, cook her something?"

"Yes. Something warm that looks tasty. Tea to drink, and a salad on the side, all on your best china with your best silver. Make sure that the lights are dimmed and put candles everywhere. I would advise growing a little beard, but that's ultimately up to her. Do you understand?"

Becker nodded gratefully.

"Thank you so much. I was terrified that she'd never forgive me!"

"There is no need to thank me. If you need more advice, go to Abby."

"She's been making horse jokes at me all week."

"Yes, she did find Jess's story to be _quite_ humorous."

"Oh, _boy_. Right, well, we'd better turn our earpieces back on."

No sooner had Becker activated his earpiece than he realized that he probably should never have turned it off.

"Becker, Emily, are you there? This is Jess, please respond. Becker, Emily, are you…"

"Here, Jess. What's wrong?"

"Oh, thank goodness you're all right! I was so worried about you! Abby's sweeping for civilians and Matt's squad fond some creatures."

"What are we dealing with here? Dinosaurs?"

"_Dilophosaurus_," said Connor. "Vicious bastards. Larger than a big crocodile, faster than humans, fairly lightly built. They've got jaws like traps; don't let 'em get a hold on your leg, or you'll never get it back."

"Ouch. Are they contained?"

"We EMD'd them. One got knocked out by a teenager who dropped out of a tree, punched it in the eardrums, did some gymnastics trick over its back in a trench coat, and ran off faster than I would've thought possible. Sholoshkova went after her; they're headed your way, although Jess thinks there must be something wrong with the black boxes, because the Russian's running at over thirty kilometers per hour. Keep an eye out for them."

"_Thirty kilometers an hour_? She's freaking inhuman!"

"We can ask her about that later, and it's probably a glitch anyway. Her coms are down. Have you found the anomaly yet?"

"Not yet. The detector's going mad, though. Doesn't the budget come through next month?"

"If Parliament decides that we're important. One the plus side, we have it better than we would in America."

"Didn't they shut down their government again?"

"Yeah. Fourth time in six years. God, but I'd hate to be an American anomaly agent!"

**Anomaly Research Centre**.

"OK, try it again, Jess."

Connor Temple typed in a short sequence on his laptop and hit the enter key.

"Nothing…nothing…nothing! Argh, it's camouflaged somehow!"

"A stealth bug—probably a Trojan. OK, so you wanna play Mr. Tough Guy, Mr. Virus. Two—well, three, 'cause Jess counts as one for me team—can play that game, buddy! Jess, I'm gonna nip over to me lab and pick up Old Faithful."

"If that doesn't work, we rip out the systems and rebuild from scratch. I can't _believe_ that someone got a Trojan onto my computer systems!"

"My computer systems…Ok, your systems, your systems, sorry, sorry."

Lester slammed the door of his office closed, cracking the glass.

"God-damn bureaucratic…inefficient moron…funding my rear end…damn Duvall!"

He rather nimbly dodged Connor as the geek tore past.

"Jess, give me some good news."

"Well, at least the detector has not literally exploded yet."

"Ah. Wonderful. It may be more infected than a plague victim, but its body is still intact. Mostly. What are those wires there?"

"Don't touch those! If you pull them out, the sweeper will crash. We're running a remote scan from Connor's computer; we hope that the virus won't spread. It's very refined spyware, not an infector, a burrower. It's not very transmissible—we think."

"Excellent. At least our least expensive and important computers are safe. We hope. Carry on."

He strode off, swearing under his breath. Then he stopped and turned.

"Oh, and Jess? Becker functions better if he doesn't take stimulants with alcohol. He has a bad reaction. It's not in his file."

**Forest of Dean**.

Abby Maitland, as much as she didn't want to, had to admit that it was easier to run through the woods with two security men than with one Connor. Connor may have been better all-around, but the security men didn't geek out over every unusual plant or bird.

"Right, I can see some people through the trees, probably a school group. Keep your weapons out but pointed at the ground. We need to get them out of here in case there're more creatures. Clear?"

"Crystal, sir," said the larger soldier—Otis? Friday? One of those generic cop names from old American radio crime dramas.

Abby forced her way through the bushes. There was a group of about thirty kids, maybe fifteen or sixteen, with four adults, probably teachers. Two girls were arguing with a teacher.

"…but Miss, there's a lion! It went after Taylor, we need to get out of here!"

"Not another word of this lion nonsense, Monroe! If you persist in covering up for your delinquent friend, you will get another week of detention! Now, where is she?"

"But Miss! There's a lion, really, a big scary one…"

"Excuse me? Abby Maitland, I'm with Animal Control. A highly dangerous animal is loose in the area, escaped from a private zoo. Miss—Monroe, is it? Yes? Miss Monroe, I am sorry to say that your friend is most likely dead. We need to evacuate this group, right now. Miss—what is your name, ma'am?"

"Suzanne Wilson. I'm a teacher at the Cecil Windlock St. John Nobbs School for Gifted Children."

Abby did a double take at that one.

"Nobby Nobbs—never mind, I don't want to know."

"One of our largest donors loves Terry Pratchett."

"I guessed as much. Now, Ms. Wilson, I need you to start evacuating this way. We need to get you out of this forest as quickly as possible."

"But what about Taylor?"

"We have men searching the woods for the lion. If we find her alive, we'll get her out. If not, we'll recover her body and send her parents a compensation check."

"But…"

"I'm sorry, but right now we need to protect the people we can save. Come on, line up everyone! Ladies first! Move quickly but quietly; we have transport arranged about a mile east. Please do not be alarmed, these men will keep you safe."

Abby surreptitiously motioned to the smaller soldier, who nodded almost imperceptibly and moved aside a few small but significant steps.

**POV: Matt. **

"New story, people," said Matt. "We're going with an escaped lion. Also, apparently that girl has a couple of friends in a school group that Abby just met up with, and they're willing to lie for her about the creatures."

"Oh, great. As if my day couldn't get any worse."

"Will you stop complaining, Becker? You've been sour all day!"

"Hey, Connor dumped a liter of soda on my pants just when James Spader showed up! It totally wrecked the movie for me!"

"Still no reason to be grouchy on the job."

"Focus on getting those sleepy dinosaurs ready for transport. I've got the _real_ job—finding the damn anomaly with a useless detector."

"Will you two stop bickering like a pair of kids? I'm trying to get this virus out of the detector while monitoring the Russian and trying to remotely fix her black box. It's not easy!"

"Where is she, anyway?"

"She's stationary. You should be able to see her just a hundred feet ahead of you, Becker."

"I've got nothing—oh, _shit_!"

"What?"

"Black box. On the ground. There's tracks—human, two sets, running. One is combat boots, the other looks like tennis shoes. Damn, look at the stride length—and the depth. The people are running _fast_."

"Is it the Russian? Did she get taken by someone? Or something?"

"I don't know. Looks like she was _chasing_ something—or someone. That girl Matt mentioned. I don't see any creature tracks, but that doesn't mean there's nothing out here. Emily, come on. Let's find Tanya before she gets herself killed."

**Enjoy! Please review—I accept any criticism that does not consist of nothing but "this story sucks" or similar wording. Note that if you hate the story, please say so—just tell me why, so that I can fix the issues. **

**I haven't explicitly said this yet, but the story is set in the near future—about 2015, relatively late in the year. Since Phillip Burton invented room-temperature superconductors, and Connor uses stupidly advanced technology on a regular basis (New Dawn device that warps the space-time continuum, anyone?), I found it reasonable to assume that the show is set a few years from now. 2015 is a little early, but I wanted an Avengers joke. What can I say—I am a supergeek. **

**Two more chapters, and then we can get to the big two-episode mid-season climax. Then a bit of a breather episode, followed by the dramatic ending and cliffhanger (not too bad, just a little foreshadowing). **


	4. Chapter 4: Easy mission--for some

**Disclaimer: I don't own Primeval. **

**Reviews and criticism (even negative) are appreciated. Flames without ideas for improvement will be used to boil pasta. Remember, if you don't tell me what's wrong, I can't fix it. **

**Part Four: **

**Forest of Dean. **

Taylor Craig, codename Raven (CIA agent serial number A52-GMHX-13) frantically undid her coat buttons as she ran. She should've worn her bodysuit, and damn the heat. As it was, her modified T-shirt and fashionable jeans were going to get her killed.

Not that Kevlar was useful against April's armblades—the bodysuit was just easier to move in than jeans.

Still no cell phone signal. Her magnetic sense was pinging—something was drawing off her internal navigator. Something close. Straight ahead—there. The anomaly.

Taylor nearly sobbed with relief. The mutant killer was less than fifty feet behind her. The anomaly gave Taylor a chance.

**Anomaly Research Centre**.

"OK, try again."

"Still nothing."

"Damn it. Where did I put me lucky sonic screwdriver?"

"You have a sonic screwdriver? How did you get one of those?"

"There's this website, called ThinkGeek, and they sell all sorts of neat stuff. I got me a Tenth Doctor sonic screwdriver for ten pounds. Ah, there it is!"

"Alright… Do you have any other ideas? I'm tapped out."

"If we broaden the search parameters, that might work…"

"But we'd be running the risk of destroying critical data. I'm not risking nuking my computers."

"It might be our only chance. This is really good spyware."

"…OK. Hold on to that sonic screwdriver—we're going to need all the luck we can get."

"How broad d'you think we need to go?"

"Search for outgoing signals. I'm going to close all outgoing processes, which should leave the spyware as the only outgoing operation. Wait until I say go."

"Jess, you're brilliant! This might just work!"

"I know. All right, everyone, I'm not going to be coordinating for about five minutes. We're going to see if this new sweeper of Connor's can fix the system, and I need to close most of the programs. If it works, we'll clean up any mobile detectors that are compromised. Try not to get killed while I'm busy, because I'll never forgive you."

**Forest of Dean. **

April knew she was winning. The bird girl was clearly tiring, and she was barely fifty feet ahead. The anomaly was only a hundred yards away; she would make it, but then she'd be trapped in the past with the ultimate living weapon on her metaphorical tail.

April leaned in and pushed, sprinting as fast as she could. Thirty feet away—the girl was maybe fifty yards from the anomaly—twenty…ten…

And then Raven managed to pull off her coat as she dove through the anomaly, and the flying garment slapped April in the face as the agent's wings unfurled.

April did not so much run through the anomaly as nosedive unceremoniously through it, a fact that left her steaming with rage.

Something moved over her as she pulled the coat off her face, snagging the coat as it went. April sliced upwards, and was rewarded by a gasp of pain from Raven as her left armblade got the bird girl's leg.

The anomaly pulsed as the wormhole reacted to Raven's bioelectrical field, and a _whoosh_ of air heralded the girl's kicking off into the air.

"Damn it! Son of a…damn. Right, you little *****, I'll call May and have her hunt you. Damn little augmented *****! You're freaking _dead_!"

April stood, sliced a tree fern in half out of lazy anger, and wiped her bloody armblade on a convenient leaf. It wouldn't be good to have to explain about blood dripping from in between her third and fourth fingers.

"They're close. The mud around this print is still slumping in. That way, no more than a hundred yards. The girl went for the harder ground, and Tanya followed."

Captain Hilary Becker broke into a run, Emily breathing heavily behind him, and set the charge on his EMD to level 1 (_T-rex_). Just in case.

There was a line of bushes that was still waving. Becker charged through heedlessly. The Russian was standing on the other side, shaking her head at the anomaly and hissing. It was an extremely creepy sound, eerily reminiscent of a pit viper that had bitten Becker in the leg on a mission to Uganda during his quick loan to the UN peacekeepers. Becker felt himself shiver involuntarily, but controlled himself.

"Tanya! Are you alright? Your black box malfunctioned; Jess thought that you were going over thirty kilometers per hour. We found it back that way, don't worry."

The Russian turned, grimacing.

"I have always been fast, _tovarishch_. Maybe not that fast, but fast. She got away."

"Who was she?"

"I don't know. She works for the Americans, of that I'm sure."

"Americans?"

"_Da_. We have had skirmishes with them before. I would advise you to be careful; they are not fully human."

"Not human? What do you mean?"

"They got their hands on some future technology. Nasty stuff. Cybernetics, implants, genetic modification—that girl was part bird. I wouldn't be surprised if she's got a mind-control chip in her head."

"Seriously? Because that's a little hard to believe."

"You're standing right in front of a hole in the damn space-time continuum, and you're saying that something's unbelievable? Really, Captain?"

Something about the way the Russian was talking bothered Becker. The way she said "stuff" didn't quite click with her accent.

"..huh. That actually kind of makes sense. Right. We'd better keep an eye out for them in the future. Matt, we've found the anomaly. Tanya ran a pretty much straight path down here—bring the creatures. We'll need to ask Lester to throw some pointed questions at the Americans when we get back."

**April POV. **

Damn it, damn it, damn it! Her goddamn accent! She got distracted by wondering where Raven had gone, and her freaking accent slipped!

On the plus side, Raven's little trick wouldn't work again, and April knew that the girl knew it.

A few quick lies would take care of the ARC team's suspicions. They had had encounters with future technology—most notably that nut Helen Cutter's clone army—before; it wouldn't be hard to manipulate them. Future tech—heh. Baselines. Even when they used stuff that only years before was nothing but science fiction, such as the room-temperature superconductors in the EMDs, they couldn't comprehend someone else making the same leap without getting the tech from the future.

Andersen and his team came up about fifteen minutes later, dragging an unconscious dilophosaur and gasping for breath. Abby arrived with the locking device shortly afterwards.

April resolved to ask May to hunt down Raven for her.

_Note to self: be sure to ask May to take video. The girl's altered vocal cords should make a nice scream. _

**Anomaly Research Centre. **

James Lester returned from his coffee break, fuming mildly.

"Any progress?"

"Yeah! We found the bug, and we're backtracking it through me programs. It's got dummy switches, metastatic segments, and false deactivication lines, but I think we've got it. We're going to peel it from the base code line by line, and then we're going to use its base functions to root it out once we've seized control. Jess is busy—don't mess with her."

"Excuse me, Temple, but I am the boss here…"

"Yeah, and if Jess gets interrupted this whole thing could crash, and we might never get the virus out. Trust me, don't distract her."

Lester opened his mouth, closed it, and turned again, storming off in a huff.

"Damn overpaid freelance staff…the _temerity_! Telling _me_ to _leave_! The _gall_ of the man…"

Jess snickered quietly.

"Alright, Connor, try this one out."

"Nothing. Damn it!"

"Try manually looking for an open value—that might be a password slot for back-door access to the program."

"Got it. I'm really clutching me sonic screwdriver now, by the way."

"Maybe that'll help. My god—I'm starting to go superstitious!"

"Happens to the best of us, on this job. I have a lucky pair of Star Trek: The Next Generation pants that I always wear if I've got advance notice of field missions. Try running a hidden-objects search—if we're lucky, that might find an access line."

"Right. Anything?"

"Nope…nope…nope…bingo! There's a password hatch and a login graphic; you have to use the hidden objects search, activate the program, and then it gives you the login! Someone slipped up and left a _post hoc_ modification hatch!"

"Password?"

"Er…no clue, to be honest. It's not even labeled or marked, so I have no idea who wrote the code."

"It's on our systems, and it seems to be tailored for them—that must narrow the field a little bit."

"If it was made to target our systems…Anomaly. That's the password."

"You're sure?"

"Positive. Just like when Leek betrayed us, and I had to hack his files. Now cross your fingers, because we've got only one shot at this."

Jess crossed her fingers on both hands, closed her eyes, and started humming the _Star Wars_ theme song for luck.

**Forest of Dean. **

Abby Maitland twiddled her thumbs idly as the men hauled the last dilophosaur back home. The Russian was sitting next to her, gruff and taciturn. The American girl had shaken her up pretty badly.

Of course, Matt and Becker wouldn't _dream_ of asking for help, not in front of the Russian. Competitiveness. Must be a Y-chromosome thing. Why they thought that refusing help would impress the Russians more was a mystery, but it was mildly amusing.

She'd tried talking to Tanya, but had gotten one-word responses. After ten or so tries, Abby had given up.

Coms were still down—Jess and Connor must be having some trouble. Could be worse, though. At least this mission had been cleared up fairly quickly.

They hadn't found the missing schoolgirl, but Abby was inclined to believe that the "schoolgirl" was the American operative that Sholoshkova had gone after. Abby hadn't heard the whole story yet, but what she had heard was creepy.

Her mobile rang. Lester.

"Hello, sir. Coms are still down, I take it?"

"Correct. You should have field communications, apparently, but not back to the ARC. Now, this is extremely important; life and death, future of the world, irritatingly superior Harold damn Duvall, and all that wonderful garbage that we deal with on a daily goddamn basis. Oh, what I wouldn't give to get my hands on Harold Duvall's smarmy neck right about now…"

"Sir? You're rambling." That wasn't like Lester at _all_—he never, ever rambled. He must be extremely upset, to say the least.

_Note to self: Head straight home. Ask Becker to give Connor a ride. No need to subject myself to the Wrath of the Boss. _

"Yes, right…as I was saying; where are the special treats for Wilbur?"

"There's a big box of Osage oranges that I imported from Kansas over by the food for the arctocyonids. Connor said that the oranges aren't really oranges and so on, and that they evolved along with mammoths. They should be like candy for him."

"Ah, excellent. Thank you, Abby. Oh, and a tasteful little crate marked "Mammoth Chow", as well. How…cute. I'll just go feed the mammoth, then, while you…do…well, whatever the hell it is that you staff do."

"Goodbye, sir—and remember, the mammoth's on a diet, don't overfeed him again!"

"I'll overfeed my own damn mammoth if I feel like it! That said—perhaps I should save some of these for his birthday next week. Now back to work, Maitland!"

Abby sighed as she hung up. Lester didn't like to admit it, but he had a soft spot for that mammoth.

The anomaly pulsed, and Matt and Becker came back through the anomaly, arguing about football, of all things. Emily and the soldiers were passing money around behind them. The soldiers seemed to be doing most of the handing, and Emily seemed to be doing the receiving.

"I see that you've been corrupted by the twenty-first century," said Abby jokingly as the team walked back to their cars, the locked anomaly safe behind them under the watchful eyes of the ARC science and secondary security teams (who were quite sensibly sent out an hour after the core team, in order to reduce the deaths of techs and security men who had not been given all of the information about the ARC yet). "Less than a year here, and already gambling. How much did you win?"

"417 pounds. Those soldiers should have known better—I know Becker and Matt quite well."

"You certainly know Matt better than they do. How are you two doing, by the way?"

"We are taking it slowly. We had the most romantic dinner at his apartment three nights ago. Candles and flowers and everything!"

"Yeah, Matt's got a nice flat. He's romantic, eh? I should start training Connor in romance before we get married."

"That'd probably be a good idea. Scrawny, tactless geek like him who can't notice a damn thing to save his life and practically needs a damn billboard to notice the obvious? He needs help. A lot of help, fast."

Abby half-turned. The Russian was looking unusually and somewhat uncharacteristically surly—and what she'd just said hadn't sounded quite right. She was too familiar with English slang, and her accent had slipped, now that Abby came to think about it, that one time four days ago when Abby had asked her about a boyfriend or girlfriend. Tanya spoke with a thick Urals Russian accent, like a zookeeper Abby had known once at the Wellington Zoo, but when she was shocked, her voice had slipped into a Muscovite drawl, just for a few moments.

"Eh, he's cute. And he's not _that_ hard to train. It just takes a little work, that's all."

Tanya grunted noncommittally in response.

**CIA Deep Cover base 4 (Southern England and Wales). Undisclosed location. **

Taylor Craig flashed her ID badge at the check-in. The perky redhead behind the counter saw Taylor's injuries and the Operation Falcon insignia on the badge, and immediately sent her down to Infirmary 3. The Area 52 ward. The techs down there called it the Animal Hospital, at least until Villette "Agent Sabertooth" Tcherine had heard that joke and rearranged a medic's face despite being semiconscious from therocephalian venom.

Taylor could always count on a free massage, foot rub, and personal highly nervous attendant every time she was badly injured enough to need medical attention in the area. The perks of working with Villette were many.

Two medics rushed forwards with a stretcher as soon as the lift bell dinged. Taylor collapsed onto it—flying had been painful, but walking on the injured leg had ben excruciating.

"Ma'am, what exactly happened to you?"

"Arm's a dilophosaur bite—nonvenomous. Leg's a Twelve armblade. She found me by chance, I barely got away. I need to call my boss—anything you hear is Level Seven secret."

The medics paled. Level Seven was above top secret—telling anyone that kind of information without express clearance was treason.

Finally, more than one bar. This ought to do it—and thank some random deity for the private carrier, because prices for transatlantic mobile calls were mad these days.

The other end picked up on the second ring.

"Agent Gull."

"Hey Stephanie, this is Taylor. I need to speak to Davis, right now."

Stephanie's breath caught. She knew what the call had to mean.

"Which one?"

"April. I got away, but only just. There were three dilophosaurs, she was distracted…"

"I'll catch the rest later. Professor! It's Agent Raven, she ran into one of the Twelve in the field."

Davis swore mutedly on the other end, and picked up seconds later.

"Davis here."

"Professor, it's Taylor Craig. I just encountered a Concordium cell."

"You're sure? This isn't just some crazy joke or mix-up with the Russians again? Because Ivanova said…"

"High-powered energy weapons, some sort of earpieces for coms, and a Twelve augment. It's April, sir."

**And BWAHAHAHAHA! I WILL MAKE YOU WAIT FOR THE FINALE! Because I am freakishly busy applying to college. Also, I still need to iron out the kinks and get the story for the next "episode". **

**Answers to likely questions: **

**April's slipping because she's in a high-stress situation with a lot of variables. She had to lose close to thirty pounds, mostly muscle, for her last infiltration assignment in the ARC, and now she's using a completely different identity coupled with trying to express-remove all of the suspiciously unusual habits that she developed in six months of rooming with another psychotic killer. She spent six months regaining her muscle, she hates the ARC staff passionately, and Taylor/Agent Raven is a random factor that she couldn't account for beforehand. Right now she's trying to Indiana Jones Improv Ploy her way out of this mess without just revealing herself, because her superiors will be Very Upset if she terminates the ARC team before she gets the order. **

**Taylor didn't react with the ARC personnel, and she saw Matt and two soldiers with April, so of course she thinks that the ARC team members are April's mooks. She freaked out and attacked the dilophosaur to get the chance to run while April was partially distracted. She thinks that April and her organization have completely infiltrated the British government and is worried that she'll have to fake her death and relocate her family into witness protection or something. **

**Also, as for why there is a teenager working field duty on anomalies—and solo, for that matter—Taylor isn't a typical teenager. **

**Yes, I will give a little Jess/Becker romance mush in my next update. Because, you know, Jecker is cute. **

**Connor and Abby are still engaged here—wedding scene (with associated hilarity, stag night nightmares, creature attacks, and general geekdom) is still to come. I'm thinking of putting a little light something between Future Matt's reappearance at the end of episode 6 and the beginning of "season" 7. Minimal and light-hearted action, lots of situational comedy, a little slapstick. **

**Lester WILL get an awesome kickass Boss Rage scene. If he shoots a creature multiple times with an EMD for touching his new sports car—what happens to the augment who throws it at his head? **

**Still finishing up the creature design for next "episode". This one will be very scary and much, much more lethal than a future predator. **


	5. Chapter 5: Calm before the storm

**I don't own Primeval. This is non-for-profit fan fiction and no copyright infringement is intended. Temporal dynamics in these stories work by the Infinite Possibilities/Stable Timelines hypothesis. **

**Part Five: **

**Anomaly Research Centre. **

"We're in! We're in! Jess, you're a genius!"

"Yes! YES! You start unraveling the code, try to break its cloak—I'll run some more scans."

"Right—hmmm, there's a whole list of settings here about its download speed and something called "active camouflage," but I think that that's a trap. Let me just…take this line of code _here_ and…Boom. Down goes Gordian's knot. Anything?"

"Yes! I have Malwarebytes and Avira picking it up now—wow, it's infected half of the detector! Not just anomaly detection—personnel files, mission reports, MY PRIVATE DIARY! Son of a—worthless pieces of—ooh, when I find out who did this, they'll wish they were never born!"

"Private diary? Let us have a look, then?"

"Hell, no, Connor Temple. Make sure the virus doesn't have some sort of self-repair or something. All this on a premade program…creature files, New Dawn—they got all of the New Dawn data, although the anomaly machine specifications have been routed to lower priority…"

"They must already have those. This is not good at _all_."

"This thing routed out the mission reports and science reports on Helen Cutter, Jenny Lewis, and the anomaly junction from the fourth mission as top priority—and someone called Claudia Brown…"

"Oh, no," said Connor with a horrified sense of dawning comprehension. "They wanted information on timeline alteration and junctions…Oh, my god. This is even worse than I thought. Who did this?"

"No idea. This is totally new—I've never seen anything act like this before. Custom-made, probably. Timeline data, Cutter's research model, the artifact, the temporal faultline from the third mission—those came next. Creature data and science data followed, focusing on future time periods."

"They're doing something, something to do with the future. Something to do with timeline alteration. And whatever happened with Matt and New Dawn—I don't know, maybe he was supposed to go back? But whatever happened, we've only delayed the apocalypse, based on those predators we met a few months back—oh, no. Maybe these guys are trying to create that—oh, no."

"This is odd. The highest priority file was a personal note from Cutter to Sarah Page about the time map research model—apparently some parts of the model weren't fitting right and kept breaking. Something to do with one point, where two anomalies met up…"

"Which ones?" asked Connor, with a sinking feeling that he already knew.

"The Forest of Dean anomaly from the first future predator incident. And the one from the Permian to the future."

"That's why they wanted stuff about Jenny," said Connor, realizing at the back of his mind that he sounded really epic now. "They're trying to alter time itself."

**CIA Deep Cover base. Infirmary 3. **

"We can't just attack England. The Concordium's had time to get situation there, we'd have to take out half the government."

"Maybe we can just find out who these people are and take out the confirmed agents? With my modifications, I could take out most of them."

"I don't want a mystery sniper serial killer, targeting only their operatives, to alert them. We need to find who makes up the Concordium team and kill them in one strike."

"Have you checked up on my dad? Is he Ok? Do I need to relocate?"

"He's fine. We have Operation Saber agents watching him."

"Those guys couldn't protect a…"

"They did just fine when the North Koreans tried to assassinate the President! Seven of them were undercover as Secret Service clowns; we'd have Hanson in the Oval Office right now if it weren't for them, and that's a damn good thing, seeing as Hanson's more stupid than the President before last, or that Texan nitwit the Republicans ran last election…"

"But still…"

"No. All of us are needed for active anomaly recon duty. We cannot afford another Foss."

"Davis, _April_ is here. I saw her cut a woman in half with one hit in Nevada, and you saw what she did to Foss; my dad and friends don't stand a chance!"

"Don't tell me what happened to Howard! I ****ing KNOW what happened to him!"

"She set a pack of raptors on him and got away with a few scars! He got torn to bits! I'd have gone the same way if Stephanie hadn't shown up with backup and shot her in the head—not that it even made a dent or anything."

"SHUT UP! Damn it, give me a second here."

Davis took a few deep breaths. He had particular reason to hate April—he and Foss had been friends since college, and had done multiple collaborative studies as professors before the first anomaly incident in Vermont. The ornithologist's death had hit him hard.

"Right. I want you back stateside ASAP, and here's why: About a week ago Clandestine Ops lost a man in London. He'd been tracking a Ukranian hitter caller Lyudmilla Dovechenko, alias Miss Angel. She's a good-looking blonde with a penchant for knife work and a knack for leaving behind a large trail of bodies and escaping certain death. Fifteen trained CIA assassins have been sent after her, occasionally several at once. All have been killed. Agency higher-ups have suggested to me that this latest disappearance—and the fact that the missing man turned up dead and butchered like a pig in a number of small packages along the Thames—is indicative of a Twelve operative."

"Sounds like her."

"There's more. I checked back, and a woman using an alias that was recently found to be one of Dovechenko's landed in LAX by commercial flight three days before the JSTI attack in Area 51. She never left the country officially, but we can assume that she left more stealthily. Also, research into the Prospero Industries explosion during the Convergence—and no, I'm not just suspicious about them because they won't share their toys, there was definitely some sort of EMP pulse originating from their clandestine research facility about that time—shows that among the missing, claimed to be dead, were two people called Phillip Burton—the company CEO—and April Leonard."

"April?"

Taylor winced as a medical…person poured antiseptic on her bite.

"A bit more than coincidence. Burton's body was never found, but they found DNA traces in a roasted tooth fragment. Looks like he was near ground zero of the blast. Leonard's body was never found; no traces, no ash, no nothing—just a few drops of blood that were too contaminated for DNA analysis, some sort of roasted bat-like animal—the specimen disappeared mysteriously, but the photo looks like a small pterosaur—and a mangled, half-melted assault weapon."

"What did she look like before the blast?"

"I had Jimmy do some hacking as soon as I found the name—I couldn't find anything more, someone's done a major cover-up. Nothing on the explosion yet, but he found a Prospero Industries personnel file, a résumé, and some basic ID data. No medical reports from before her employment, all exams conducted by a doctor not on the company list, working on a secret project under the table, and so forth. One picture."

"And?"

Davis sucked a big breath in, then blew it out through his teeth.

"It's her."

**Matt Anderson's apartment. London, England. **

"So this…"future" you…how many times has appeared?"

"Once when he talked to me. He said that I "had to go back." But I've seen him, watching me. Always from some distance, skulking in the shadows. He seems to not like security cameras."

"Perhaps he's trying to warn you?"

"Yeah, but about _what_? And how do we even know that that's me from my future? He looks about the same age as me, just sort of…haggard."

"Well, we can be fairly certain that he wants you to go back to the future—do you want Chinese food or Italian?"

"If by Italian you mean pizza, I want olives and mushrooms. No anchovies, period."

"Right. I will call the restaurant…"

"Need me to get the phone?"

"No, I am getting the hang of it…"

"Fine. Boy, am I tired. Hauling three dinosaurs through the woods! Even with Becker and four soldiers to help, that was tough!"

"You could have asked Abby, Tanya, and me to help."

"But… you're just _women_…oh, crap, was that out loud?"

Matt cringed as Emily turned on him, looking rather irate.

"I will have you know that more than seventy percent of athletes who compete in running events of longer than marathon distance are women! Women can lift more, pound-for-pound, than men, especially in leg and torso exercises. Female martial artists are consistently ranked higher on an international level than men, even though there are more men than women in martial arts due to societal prejudice. We are stronger, tougher, and have more stamina than comparably-sized men; Abby showed me a medical study that showed that if women had men's pain tolerance and stamina, they would not be able to survive pregnancy with any regularity! Seven of the top ten best-paid assassins in the world are female, according to Becker. If I EVER hear you referring to us as "just women" ever again, so help me I will defenestrate you!"

Matt tried to shrink into himself, which is not easy to do when one is lying on a couch with one's feet propped up.

He had to stop forgetting that Emily could be touchy about sexism.

**April's apartment. 7:14 PM. **

April booted up her computer and checked her email. The Twelve secret board was pretty active.

_From: januarynumber1 To: perfect10, mominatrix, iamnumber4, etc. Subject: PARTY! _

_Hey gals, _

_Nabbed an M16 agent in the Philippines just for kicks. Party at my place (I'm in Berlin, 32 Leopoldstrasse) in a week! Free German craft beer, bring your own thumbscrews; this one has some nice fingers, and some info that the bosses want. The fat higher-up promised a bonus to whoever gets it out of him first. _

_Details and rules to follow. _

_January. _

_From: mominatrix To: iamnumber4 Subject: Logistics. _

_April, _

_I'm in Canada to assassinate the Prime Minister, and my five-year-old has a playdate on Thursday. Could you ensure that he gets there? _

_Thanks; you're a doll. _

_September. _

_From: perfect10 To: iamnumber4, mominatrix Subject: Check-up from up top—passing it on. _

_April, September—just got news from the short, ugly higher-up who reeks of bad cologne. September, your next job has been changed. Your target is Harold Duvall. He has compromised operational security. April, you are cleared to attack at your convenience only if either (a) the ARC team finds out who you are or (b) the Area 52 people show up in full force. I pity you, hun—that's a crappy assignment you've got there! _

_October. _

Well, that was not unexpected. April typed up a quick RSVP to January—sorry, can't attend, busy, et cetera—delegated September's request to March (who was stationed in the Netherlands) with a stern warning to behave, and typed up a quick message to October and May.

_From: iamnumber4 To: perfect10, .assassination Subject: URGENT—Augmented Falcon agent sighted, need intel, backup. _

_Ran into Agent Raven in the field today. She's been extensively augmented. Augmented strength, possible sense augments, and freaking wings. She got away. _

_I need someone to track her down and torture her to death. Be sure to record the screams. I'll toss an original Russian Cold War era shoe phone to whoever gets it done. _

_Still undercover at the ARC. They haven't recognized me yet, probably because I had to lose something like 30 pounds of muscle for my role as Miss Leonard, but several of them are suspicious. If you can, can you tap someone for standby? _

_Thanks, _

_September. _

Right. Now that that was done—time to contact the higher-ups on her other account.

_From: april.4.12 To: supreme_overlord Subject: Hey, short ugly dude. _

_Attention, short ugly higher-up with bad breath: _

_Arrows virus failed. Coms hack picked up Duvall screwing up and Lester getting suspicious. Good thing, too—Duvall was an idiot. Eighteen months of prep and a rigged election, and he lets Lester get aware? I hope that September remembers to send me the video of his termination. Parker caught the Arrows worm—stupid suspicious little bitch. I'll kill her slowly. Temple caught the back-door and reworked the program to self-destruct. I'll gut him like a fish and let him bleed out. _

_I found Agent Raven in the field today. She's been extensively augmented—wings, muscle mods, probably an altered breathing system. She almost kept pace with me, and used a neat little trick with the anomaly to get away. Fifteen years old, and she could take out an entire Special Forces hit team in seconds. They're getting smarter on the other side of the pond. _

_Say the word, and I'll do what you built me to do. _

_April. _

**Abby Maitland's apartment. London, England. 7:30 PM. **

"So then Jess starts giggling uncontrollably, and we rework the virus to hit its point of origin instead."

"And?" asked Abby, who was in the bathroom getting changed.

"Well, it got loaded onto our system from a jump drive, which we have the technicians searching for. No luck yet, and we still don't know who put it into the detector. What're you _doing_ in there, anyway?"

"Just…a moment…mrfff! Stupid…tight…"

"D'you need help?"

"No...it's just a tight dress…"

"Oh, is it the new one I got you?"

"Yeah…it's a little…tight…"

"Oh, sorry—I just saw it, and it looked so perfect for you, and I…"

"Yeah, I get it, you forgot to…rfff!...check the size…mff! And I think it shrank a little in the wash…mfrgl! Ah, there. A little tight, but it fits. I just have to avoid moving my shoulders the wrong way…"

Connor was dressed up in a tuxedo. Abby had to admit that he cleaned up well.

"You ready—wow. That's…wow. You look great!"

"A little tight across the shoulders, I think. If I try monkey bars with this on, it's going to tear for sure."

"Then let's hope we don't get surprised by creatures."

"Don't tempt fate, Connor."

"Right, sorry—how was your day, anyway?"

Abby was a little wobbly in her heels—they always took a little getting used to. Connor had been reading up on proper gentlemanly behavior, and so offered her his arm.

"Well, we fought some dinosaurs, got a school group out of the woods before something from a horror movie happened—pretty much a normal day."

"I heard about the American girl—did anyone other than the Russian see her get away?"

"No, but Becker says that Tanya's explanation makes the most sense. Man, this dress is _tight_!"

"Sorry…I really should've checked the size…"

"It's fine, it's not like I can't breathe or anything—it's just cutting into my shoulders a little."

"Maybe I should lull down the zipper in the back for you?"

"No, that'd look weird. Unless…hey, could you run back inside and get my scarf?"

"Oh, sure. One sec."

He ran back inside, and Abby watched. She had to admit that he was rather attractive—in a scruffy sort of way. He'd been working out—there was more muscle on hi than the first time he'd worn a tux.

Wow. That was more than two years ago now. Incredible.

**Captain Hilary Becker's apartment. London, England. 9:00 PM. **

Okay…lights, check. Candles, check. Spaghetti, check. Alfredo sauce, check. Salad, check. Tomato soup, check. Bed made, check. Tight black T-shirt to show off muscles, check. Cologne and deodorant, check. Slight stubble, check—not really comfortable to a man used to regulation cuts, but if it made Jess happy, then it was worth it. Benedict Cumberbatch thriller in the DVD player—check. Hopefully Jess wouldn't mind—Becker hadn't been able to find any rom-coms.

Becker ran through the list in his head one more time. All clear. And not a moment too soon, because there was the doorbell.

Jess looked stunning. Her hair was done up, she was wearing a tight black dress with a revealing neckline, and that necklace really drew the attention—whoah. Back up.

"Uh…hello, Jess! Er…come right on in, I hope that I haven't forgotten anything…"

"Oh, you made dinner! Oh, that's so sweet!"

_Ten points_, thought Becker, who was keeping score of relationship points in his head as Emily had suggested. _Right, Becker. Time to turn up the romance. _

"Not as sweet as your voice. Here, let me get your chair for you…"

Jess blushed but smiled warmly.

"Why thank you, kind sir! What a gentleman!"

Good so far. Now to cross his fingers and pray that the dinner was well-received.

**And done. Whew! That was fun to write, but tough. Notes: **

**Why am I putting Matt in the doghouse? Because he's too one-sided. All of the other men have their little flaws—Becker is clearly insecure about his masculinity, Connor is a geek (and often exasperates Abby as a result), and Lester is an asshole. Matt is my least favorite character because he's too often portrayed as the flawless Chosen One. The one scene where I really like him as a character is the one in s5e3 where he accidentally pisses off Emily by making a mildly sexist remark regarding hunting the raptor that's the Monster Of The Week. So, I'm putting him in the doghouse a little. **

**Also, with the exception of the bit about assassins, everything that Emily says is true. Use Wikipedia and/or Google if you don't believe me. **

**Yes, there are twelve women like April. If the ARC team knew about them, Becker would be practically gibbering in fear. Two more will appear for "Episode" 6. **

**I'm sticking to canon ships here, because Conby is cute and Jecker is hilarious. **

**Until she reveals herself, all other characters will refer to April by her current alias. Hopefully this will not be too confusing. **

**Up next [SPOILER ALERT]: **

**The Americans fight off a vicious future crocodile with a virulently septic bite, but one of their agents gets lost in a faultlining anomaly. She (plus the creature) reappear in England, where Becker is bitten. The ARC team has less than a day to save their friend. **


End file.
